Hopefully that's a placeholder. I'm not paying £400+ again like I did with PS3, I was hoping for £349.

£400 when the ps3 came out was much more than £400 in today's money due to inflation. That would probably be the same as £550 in today's money or something similar. £400 isn't too bad for a powerful console that the ps4 is.

Why am I continually getting the impression that this generation of consoles are going to be a complete rip-off?

I have no idea why you would think that. The next generation of consoles is well overdue, and from what we know, they will be very powerful and flexible hardware. I'm quite excited for it, if only to see how they will push gaming technology forward and make it easier for independent developers to publish for consoles.

Prices seem in line with the previous generation, so where's the rip-off?

In engineering, it is usually more difficult to design simple solutions than to design complex ones. The PS4 is the result of a ton of research and experimentation, certainly vastly more than the PS3.

This is crazy talk.

The design of the PS4 is practically off the shelf compared to the PS3, not to mention blu-ray drives are what, 25% the cost the were when the PS3 came out?

It's $400 (or whatever the equivalent in dollars will be) because Sony looks at what they can get now, and what they can still get for it 7 years out. No one wants to continuously do price cuts and end up selling something for $50 by the end of its lifespan.

Taking bets how long will it take for someone to exploit it (crack it). PS3 lasted virgin for many years, it was a hard bone for the hackers.

When Sony gave Linux options, hackers weren't targeting, when someone started to get access to the PS3 OS, and Sony over reaction and removing the linux install option (on the older models), they essentially energized the hacking community against them, were before most didn't even bother.

When Sony gave Linux options, hackers weren't targeting, when someone started to get access to the PS3 OS, and Sony over reaction and removing the linux install option (on the older models), they essentially energized the hacking community against them, were before most didn't even bother.

No offense, but I find that very hard to believe. I have yet to see a console where the hacking community does put forth a good effort in circumventing the security of the system. As far as I know the only reason they go into the PS3 was due to those leaked keys.

Back to the topic, I'll be more inclined to believe the price when Sony actually announces something (likely at E3 which is what, about 6 weeks away now?).